The air in the conference hall was stale, smelling of industrial-grade carpet and the collective, anxious sweat of three hundred "A-type" personalities. Eunice, twenty-seven and already a senior strategist at her firm, tapped her pen against her leather-bound notebook. Click. Click. Click. It was the only sound she could control in a room full of self-important noise. The keynote speaker was droning on about "synergistic disruption," and she was mentally halfway through her fourth-quarter projections. She was driven. She was successful. And she was, if she was honest, profoundly bored.
Her gaze swept the room, cataloging, dismissing. Suits. Bad ties. People who checked their phones under the table. Then, her eyes landed on him.
He was in the third row, not in the "VIP" front seats, but he commanded the space as if he'd bought it. He was young. Too young, was her first thought. He couldn't have been more than twenty-three, twenty-four at most. Yet he wasn't taking notes. He was just... watching. His suit was sharp, modern, and he leaned forward slightly, an air of coiled energy about him. He looked less like an attendee and more like a panther assessing a new hunting ground.
When the Q&A began, a vice-president from a rival company stood up. "Can you elaborate on the scalability of that model for the emerging-market sector?"
Before the speaker could answer, the young man spoke, his voice clear and carrying easily, without a microphone. "It can't be scaled. The model is flawed."
A wave of shocked silence rippled through the hall. People turned. The speaker, a man twice his age, visibly bristled. "I'm sorry, son, who are you?"
The young man stood. He wasn't particularly tall, but he seemed to take up all the air. "Karlman Dowman, Dowman Analytics. The model is flawed because it assumes a stable regulatory environment. In emerging markets, you don't build on a stable foundation. You build on quicksand. You have to be the foundation."
Eunice's pen stopped clicking.
The speaker stammered a corporate non-answer, but the damage was done. The energy in the room had shifted, coalescing around the man in the third row. Eunice watched him, a slow, unfamiliar spark igniting somewhere deep in her chest. It wasn't just attraction. It was recognition.
The breakout session afterward was, by some twist of fate, a forced collaboration. She found herself at a small, circular table with him. The topic was "Future-Proofing Legacy Systems."
"A pointless exercise," he murmured, more to himself than to the group.
"Pointless?" Eunice challenged, her voice sharper than she intended.
His eyes met hers. They were a deep, piercing blue. "We're trying to put a jet engine on a horse and buggy. The future isn't about 'proofing' the past. It's about having the courage to tear it down and build what's next."
"Tearing it down is chaos," Eunice countered, her strategist's mind clicking into gear. "Building is control. You can't have one without the other."
"Chaos is just a pattern you haven't recognized yet," he said, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips. "You need to be able to see in the dark."
The other two people at their table might as well have been furniture. For the next hour, they didn't collaborate. They sparred. They argued, challenged, deconstructed, and rebuilt an entire corporate framework on a single paper napkin. He was brilliant. Quick, insightful, and utterly fearless. She matched him, blow for blow, her own mind catching fire from his. It was the most intense, intellectually thrilling hour of her life.
When the bell rang, they were left staring at the napkin, both of them breathing hard, as if they'd just run a race.
"I..." Eunice started, her usual composure gone. "I've never met anyone who thinks like that."
"Most people don't," Karlman said, his gaze locked on hers. He wasn't arrogant, she realized. Just certain. "They're too busy proofing the legacy. My flight's not 'til eight. Could I buy you a coffee, Ms...?"
"Eunice."
"Eunice," he repeated, and her name on his lips sounded like a new word. "Just coffee. I want to hear what you really think about the keynote."
She should have said no. He was too young. He was an unknown quantity. It was professionally... complicated.
"I'd like that," she heard herself say.
The undeniable spark wasn't just a spark. It was a wildfire. And it had already caught.